Let’s say the steel industry never left Youngstown. With new automation, most mills would only employ a fraction of the people. Unfortunately, the mills left and nothing has taken their place.

While I cannot predict the future, I believe the future still needs to be invented. We need to be tinkering with side projects to create new businesses and new industries. Youngstown is such a great place to be an entrepreneur because cost of living is so low. But entrepreneurship is more than business. Entrepreneurship extends to community activism, art, politics, and any other field. An entrepreneur is someone who is creating systems change.

Many people are taking advantages of Youngstown’s current economic state to make change, start businesses, and think up new projects. There are many great projects happening all over the city, I’ve been involved with clean ups, urban gardens, a business incubator. There are many more resources that I am not involved with, that are making a huge difference helping entrepreneurs start changing things.

During college I sat around a communal table and talked business, politics, and discussed different ideas three times each day. I wish I had that today in Youngstown, something like Ben Franklin’s Junto, a group to talk about what they are doing and how to make each other better. Does something like this exist in the Youngstown area? If not, Who’s interested?